The Truth May Vary
by absentaserpis
Summary: It's been years since the ceremonial duel, but Yuugi has a few things he just can't let go of.


Inspired by a friend who said the had a headcanon that older Yuugi would smoke once in a while. I don't particularly share it but this idea stuck.

* * *

One flick and the wind puts it out.

Another flick and he captures a warm, sunshine bright glow in the palm of his hands. It flickers fiercly like a tiny sprite bursting, full of life in a cocoon of skin and flesh. He lifts it to his mouth where it escapes to dance across his face, inhaling through his mouth and down his throat.

The next flick extinguishes the light and the only trace it leaves behind is the ember orange point in space that dips just below his lower lip.

The filter always tastes unpleasant, plastic and sterile but the first drag doesn't disappoint. It rolls over his tongue, sets fire to his lungs and settles in his gut to drown out the damp, dusk chill that clings to his skin like a bad memory.

"We start in ten." Kaiba broke through the haze on his way up to the arena, heels clipping the slick granite stairs with every step.

Yuugi leans back, sliding a hand to his shoulder to keep his jacket from slipping, but he doesn't bother to adjust the cigarette, preferring to grin around it. "You can say that after I'm late for once."

The only response is a grunt, followed by the opening gust of sliding glass. The senior businessman doesn't care but he also doesn't understand.

It wasn't an addiction, more like a habit, like brushing ones teeth every night where night is the prelude to every duel beneath the sun like spotlight and the only thing in his mouth is an extravagant vice. For one smoldering point in time stretched out to the tips of his fingers, Yuugi suspends himself beneath the clouds hanging blithely from the moon.

"Again, partner?" The voice materializes from out of the fog, all murmur and brass and redoubling with every syllable, and it encases the young man in nostalgia. His arms, under-dressed for the time of day and the time of year, settle vaporous on either side of his waist, palms pressing firm against the cold construction of the arena at his back. He is tawny and burnished with antique gold and to Yuugi he flickers between the face of human and god.

Yuugi greets the face that is not unlike his own, rather like an old photograph, and this time when he smiles, he does so without obstruction. "Don't be a hypocrite." He give the cigarette a flick and the ash bursts to nothing on the pavement.

"Whatever do you mean?" Atem, his other self, the no longer nameless pharaoh replies. As if he doesn't know. As if the depths of his shrewd eyes could ever conceal his soul. The kind of eyes that complete thoughts and phrases.

Yuugi could get lost in them and it wouldn't be the first time. Humans are pleasure seekers after all, always chasing after that which obliges. "Heh." Instead, he replaces the cigarette and the light between them and inhales deeply. " I've learned a few things since then."

Atem leans in, ethereal, shimmering in the moonlight. "Like what?"

The atmosphere between them crackles with electric intensity. Yuugi feels it prickling, frost bite on his bare arms which shrug entirely nonchalant. "About you. About Egypt. I know this sort of thing is older than me. Heck, it's older than you too."

"So you think you know all about that? Sure, we drank, partook of whatever diversion we wished, but it was nothing like this." With deft fingers that that dance before his eyes like flickering fireflies, he plucks the cigarette from his partner's lips and replaces it in his own. Yuugi smirks at the sight, the pharaoh, the old world marred by modern excess. Atem maintains a straight face but there's no mistaking the juxtaposition. "This is awful."

The laugh that follows unchecked, rings luminous and crystal bright. "Everyone has a vice." Yuugi ducks his head with a smirk.

Smiling, understanding, Atem's outward appearance would forever belie his experience. "Far be it from me to judge"

But something brushes Yuugi's lips again and it glows not with light but with life. Atem steals a kiss in the shadow of their sacred space and Yuugi breathes. He draws Atem in and savors him on the tip of his tongue, down his lungs and coursing through his circulatory system. The kind of kiss that lingers like a flame half half smothered. That leaves heads light and lacking oxygen. It fills Yuugi's mouth with his essence that curls languid in the air and dissipates on an up draft.

When Atem pulls away, all that's left behind is the breeze and the faint wisp of cigarette smoke, burnt out and black as pitch between his fingers. Yuugi is left with little more than a sigh.

A final flick and one satisfying crunch later and it's time to turn inside where a furious crowd and a battle and a distant promise await.

_You're gone, gone, gone away  
I watched you disappear  
All that's left is the ghost of you.  
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,  
There's nothing we can do  
Just let me go we'll meet again soon_


End file.
